Exhibit (4 page)

“That's bullshit”, Sandy says. “What I heard is that it's some kind of fucked up orgy of sex and drugs and everything else you want. They've got medical A grade heroin in there, and the best looking hookers in New York.”

“Escorts.” Carter corrects him. “High class, ten thousand dollars an hour, pussy so tight it makes you come twice escorts. The finest money can and cannot buy. It’s all there.”

“You know I would”, I say to Carter.

“Look us up when you come out.”

“If he comes out.”

Sandy raises his glass.

“Merry fucking Christmas.”

“Where are you going to be?” I ask.

“Around”, Carter says, vaguely. “You know how it is. I might go on up to Dukes. They've got something on at AB1s as well. I got to eat at some point. I'm running on empty here. You need a lift? I've got the Ferrari outside.”

“Nah”, I say. “I'll get the company to take me.”

“You sure? That's a brand new four hundred thousand dollar machine right there. Fire engine red. zero to hero so quick it makes you shit yourself before you get to the lights.”

“Pass”, I say. “Don't fuck it up.”

“You know me”, Carter says, and smiles.

“Look after Jack, he's getting a bit too old for all this.”

“Oi, I fucking heard that”, Jack says, still buried deep in that hooker’s ass.

“Get a fucking room already”, Mark chastizes him.

I do the rounds, pay the bill, call my driver and get the fuck out of there. There’s only so long you can sit around shooting the shit in a cold and clinical place like Aces when you’ve got a king’s card itching to get burned.

I’m ready to have some fun.

I
'm wedged into one of the restroom stalls with Vicki and Amanda. Amanda's tapping some grungy looking white powder that’s supposed to be coke out onto the porcelain top of the toilet cistern, while Vicki and I struggle for space in this phone box sized pissy smelling stall. She's a big girl, and she's squashing me up against the partition with her belly and her tits so much I can hardly breathe.

“Merry fucking Christmas”, Amanda says, so drunk already her makeup has run.

“Hey”, Vicki says.

“Happy fucking birthday”, Amanda says, correcting herself.

A moment later she has her head tilted back and her nose pinched between her two fingers. “Oh fuck”, she complains. “Fuck. Tissue.”

“Fuck Mand.” Vicki looks up towards her, her face twisted into a scrunch of concern.

“Quick.”

Just then, someone rattles the door violently, and for a brief moment in our drunken state, we all think it's security. When they just go to the next stall along and we hear them sit down and piss, we breathe again. Vicki pulls at the tissue dispenser and hands a wad of paper over to Amanda to stem the blood flow galloping out of her nostril.

“What is this?” Vicki asks, holding up the baggy.

“Maybe it’s MDMA after all”, Amanda says with as much of a shrug of the shoulders as she can give without agitating the bundle of tissue paper she has used to plug her nose.

“You're not supposed to snort it”, I say. “I thought it was coke.”

Vicki begins to laugh, and then we all fall about laughing too.

“You want a go?” Amanda asks, holding out the note which is now stained with her blood. I shake my head.

“Go on”, Vicki says. 'I’ll have a go, but I'm not going to snort it though.”

Vicki licks her finger, takes a dab, and rubs it into her gums. She looks at me while she does it as if to say go on, it's safe, your turn now.

“Violet?”, Amanda asks. She looks dumb with a wedge of tissue up her nose and it makes me smirk.

“Fuck it.”

I lick my finger, take a dab and rub it around my gums.

Back in the bar, talk gets around to men. Vicki's been single for a while, and she's on the pull tonight. I've been out of the game for so long, I have no idea what the fuck it is I'm doing anymore. If I'm honest, I have no idea what the fuck I'm doing in my life right now anyway.

I'm not where I want to be, that's for sure, but how do I change that? Pass, next fucking question.

I've got University qualifications but little to no work experience, beyond the volunteering work I did on my local town’s paper. And that it turns out is completely worthless. I came to New York because the opportunities for employment were supposed to be much higher than anywhere else. That was before the crisis hit, of course. Now, nobody can get a job, anywhere. It was hard enough to get the childminding gig with Stephanie, and if I give that up I’ll have nothing.

Since I got here, and realized no-one was hiring, I've been stuck in a fucking rut like a rat in a hole with flat sides, and I can't climb out. Nobody else seems to care. No one I talk to even likes New York anymore, they just say it's a city that gets on with itself and doesn't give two shits about the people that make it move along. If we give up, a new generation of people will just take our place. It's depressing.

We're like parasites on a host organism that can live with us or without us. If we stop sucking blood and nutrients out of our host we wither and die, and all the while all we're doing is surviving just to get along. I can't get out of it.

“It's this exclusive members only bar, you know real fucking hush hush.”

Fuck, it's Chris again. He's stuck to me like a fucking magnet, and I can't get him away from me. Is that my fucking drink in front of me? Fuck it. Someone hands me another tequila, I don't know who it is, but I slam it anyway just to get through the conversation blackhole with Chris. I’m drunk and the room is wobbling. Chris’s face is so close to mine, I don't know whether to kiss it. It might shut him the fuck up at least.

“Fuck, Violet”, I hear Vicki saying, and a moment later I realize why. I look around and see a group of her friends clapping me for a moment. Clapping me and Chris. Fuck. What have I done? I feel wonky and hot, and not quite anywhere.

“That was pretty unexpected”, Chris says, and leans in to kiss me again.

“I need some air”, I say, horrified by what I’ve done, desperate to take control again. I push him away, and head quickly outside. My head feels like it’s detached from my body.

Outside, it's got even colder. The snow has stopped falling, but it's collected up on the sidewalk and turned into a kind of brown slush where people have walked through it. It looks like coca-cola flavored slushie. Vicki's suddenly next to me and a moment later I realize I have a cigarette in my hand. Vicki’s got her lighter out but I don't want to smoke it. The thought nearly makes me puke. I try to put it behind my ear, but I do it clumsily and it drops to the ground. Vicki picks it up, hands it over to me and I eventually get it into my pocket.

“What was all that?” Vicki asks.

“I don't know, he wouldn't shut up.”

Maybe I’m not as fucked as I thought I was. Either that, or Vicki is just as fucked and neither of us notice it.

“Is that what you do to all men?” she asks, laughing. “You want another bit?”

She looks like she's chewing, but there's nothing in her mouth.

“I've got to eat”, I say, suddenly feeling hungry. “I think I’ll feel better if I eat. I haven’t had anything since lunchtime.”

“Chips?” Vicki asks. “Plenty of those at the table.”

I shake my head.

“I don't know what I'm doing”, I say. It feels like a confession.

“What do you want to do?” Vicki asks.

“Boyfriend, job, new apartment.”

“You should ask for a pay rise, isn't that Stephanie a rich bitch.”

“That's exactly why I wouldn't get one. She’s so tight with her money. Every time I do the shopping she insists on looking over the receipt. She didn’t even give me a bonus this year.”

“Then you'll just have to meet a millionaire”, Vicki says. “Preferably a millionaire that owns a newspaper so he can fuck you, pay you and give you a job.”

I take the cigarette from Vicki, take a drag and pass it back to her. The smoke clears my head a little and I begin to feel a little better.

“How the fuck am I going to do that?” I ask. “Millionaires don’t grow on trees unless you hadn’t noticed.”

“Get down to the city and hang around the offices. Or head to Dukes or Kings. Apparently that's where they all hang out.”

“Yeah, right, I mean, what the fuck is that anyway?” I say. “Chris said something about that earlier. Like some kind of wanky exclusive club that’s only open at Christmas time.”

“Fuck knows, I read something about it on facebook but to be honest it looked like bullshit. It's supposed to be some kind of rich kids hang out, if you believe it exists at all”, Vicki says. “Everything goes onto a card. No cash, nothing. You need ten million dollars in your account just to get on the list to get in, something fucked up like that.”

“Tell me where it is, and I'll go.”

“Well that's just it”, Vicki says, “and that’s why I think it’s got to be bullshit, nobody knows.”

“Then it doesn't exist”, I say.

“Or they just move it around. Fuck knows. Here, you want this?”

I take the last drag out of her cigarette, then throw the butt into the gutter.

“Vicki, quick.” One of her work friends has run out to get her. “You're gonna miss it, come on!”

She pulls her by the arm back into the bar, and I go with her. At the table, two firemen are waiting, a crowd of expectant women on tenterhooks.

“Vicki Spencer?” one of them says in a put-on sexy, gravelly voice.

“Yes”, Vicki confesses, already giggling at the surprise.

“I believe you've got a fire we need to put out.”

“For fuck sake”, I say, not meaning to do so out loud.

The music changes and the guys begin to dance. First around the table then up on it. After a while, the entire bar is clapping and encouraging them along. It's lame, and Vicki loves it. I stay long enough to see Vicki grab both of them by their huge bulges and slap them in turn on the ass.

I don't know where I'm planning on going, but I need a walk. This is too much for me at the moment and I’m just not feeling it. Plus, I really need to get some food and sober up. Chris wants to come with me, but I won't let him.

When I get outside, the cold air hits me and stuns me for a moment. It feels liberating to be free, and even though I have no idea where I’m going, I’m satisfied that a walk, anywhere, will be better than the tacky performance I’ve just left behind. It’s almost certainly what I need, perhaps to give me a little bit of time to think what I really want.

I’ve got almost two weeks off and I plan to use it to turn my life around. I can’t spend all of it wallowing in self pity, or drunk like I find myself tonight. I’ve already done enough of that so far in my life.

I cross the road without looking properly, and an expensive looking car almost crashes into me. It scares the shit out of me, and when I finally get to the other side, and the safety of the sidewalk, my heart is beating wildly. It's my fault, and I'm ready to apologize profusely when the window comes down. Thinking and walking when drunk across a busy intersection is a recipe for disaster.

“Are you alright?” the young man inside says, half of his face framed by darkness, the other half lost inside it.

“Sorry”, I say. “I wasn't looking. I’m really sorry.”

“Where are you going?” he asks, looking me up and down. “You look cold, can I give you a lift?”

“No, thank you”, I say, automatic alarm bells kicking in for a moment. “I'm-. I'm not going anywhere. I mean, I don't know where I'm going. I'm just walking.”

He looks up to the sky. “Lovely night for a walk”, he says.

I look up to the sky as well, and snowflakes fall coldly onto my cheeks. My hands are freezing, and even though I dig them as deep as possible into my jacket pockets, the cold is still sinking in like a lifetime’s worth of bad news.

“Where are you going?” I say, turning the question back onto him.

I don't know why, but it seems like the right question to ask. I've left my best friend's birthday party without telling her, and now I'm asking a complete stranger where it is he's going, as though I want to join him regardless of whatever he says. A moment passes, while he looks at me.

“Get in the car”, he says, eventually.

“What?” I stutter.

“Get in the car”, he says again, more firmly this time.

“Why would I want to do that?” I say.

“Because you already told me you did, and now what's happening is that you're getting scared.”

“I'm not scared”, I lie.

“What's your name?” he asks.

“Violet”, I say, before I think better of it.

“Violet, do you know what I know about you?”

I look away and then back again.

“What do you know about me?”

“I know you are looking for something, but you don't know what it is.”

Cocky. I smile because I’m nervous, and because he’s right and he shouldn’t be, and because he’s there and I am and he’s asking. I look up to the sky again, over the contours of the car, over the darkness at the edge of his face.

“Am I going to find it with you?”

“Maybe”, he says.

A moment passes. A beat in the fabric of time.

“I don't know you”, I say. “What if I get into that car and you rape and kill me?”

“Is that the kind of thing you are looking for?”

“No, of course it's not.”

My heart is beating so strongly I half expect to see it burst right out of my chest and continue off up the sidewalk.

“Get in the car”, he says again. “You can get out again when you've found what you're looking for.”

More seconds pass, moments frozen in time.

“What's your name?” I say.

“Bain”, he says, “Bain Power.”

T
idy. Very fucking tidy. I could have run her over, and now I'm going to do a lot worse. I break women you see, that's what I do. Like priceless Ming vases, bull in a china shop. I break them.

I'm good at two things, making money and breaking women's hearts. Of course, I don't set out to do that, it's just a consequence of my behaviour. It’s who I am. Really, though, I'm full of love, I just don't know what it looks like. Violet. She is one letter away from violent, though she doesn't look it at all. She looks delicate, like she’d snap in my hands like a dry twig. I wonder what she likes. I bet she likes it hard and vicious and deep and plentiful. Like me.